College football teams with the most returning production in 2020

knapplc

knapplc

Active member
Courtesy of Bill Connelly, ESPN

Connelly states, correctly, that for years all we've done is looked at raw numbers of starters returning for each team. That's flawed in a few ways, so he's taken a different approach:

"As a remedy for this, I have for a few years been deriving what I call a team's returning production percentage as an alternative to returning starters. It looks at the most predictive key personnel stats -- percentage of your QB's passing yards returning, percentage of your secondary's passes defensed returning, and everything in between -- and is weighted based on what correlates most strongly with year-to-year improvement and regression. It is a major factor in my annual SP+ projections, which will be released next week. (The other primary factors: recent recruiting and weighted five-year history.)"


College football teams with the most returning production in 2020



Returning Production for 2020







Team



Overall


Offense (Rank)


Defense (Rank)






1. Northwestern


84%


88% (6)


80% (23)




2. Georgia Tech


84%


74% (39)


94% (2)




3. Houston


83%


73% (42)


93% (3)




4. ECU


83%


87% (8)


79% (26)




5. USC


82%


77% (25)


87% (7)




6. Virginia Tech


82%


74% (36)


89% (5)




7. ODU


81%


80% (19)


83% (10)




8. UAB


81%


82% (14)


80% (20)




9. Oklahoma State


80%


75% (34)


86% (8)




10. Rice


79%


63% (70)


96% (1)




11. Indiana


78%


74% (37)


82% (13)




12. Illinois


78%


86% (11)


71% (46)




13. Louisville


78%


79% (21)


77% (31)




14. Akron


78%


89% (3)


66% (57)




15. Rutgers


78%


76% (29)


79% (25)




16. Texas A&M


77%


80% (17)


74% (37)




17. Nebraska


76%


92% (2)


59% (82)




18. North Carolina


75%


87% (9)


64% (63)




19. Coastal Carolina


75%


88% (5)


62% (69)




20. Purdue


74%


76% (32)


73% (40)




21. Texas


74%


66% (62)


82% (14)




22. Ball State


74%


68% (60)


81% (19)




23. NC State


74%


81% (15)


67% (56)




24. CMU


73%


70% (48)


77% (30)




25. Kentucky


73%


68% (56)


78% (27)









That's six Big Ten teams in the top 25, with four in our division. Illinois & Northwestern are ahead of Nebraska, and Purdue is a few spots behind the Huskers.

Other Big Ten teams:

34. Wisconsin

47. Penn State

86. Minnesota

89. Maryland

92. Ohio State

100. Iowa

116. Michigan State

124. Michigan

 
Based on many notable teams being left off this ranking, I'm gonna say this particular metric doesn't mean squat when it comes to predicting anything. Bama, Clemson, tOSU, Oklahoma....none of them in the top 25 but I'd bet they'll be just about as good as usual and the teams on this list will also be about as good as they usually are.

 
I was gonna call BS on having 92% offense returning.  But I think that's right.  We had around 5,000 total yards, and we lose Mo Washing and Wyatt Mazour.  (Anyone else?)  They accounted for around 300 yards.  Not sure how big a chunk of our points those two accounted for.  

 
NUance said:
I was gonna call BS on having 92% offense returning.  But I think that's right.  We had around 5,000 total yards, and we lose Mo Washing and Wyatt Mazour.  (Anyone else?)  They accounted for around 300 yards.  Not sure how big a chunk of our points those two accounted for.  
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Noa, Williams, and Woodward.  They too they had little production. 

 
The Davis twins played fairly well but werent real big difference makers (except a few real negative penalty cases that I recall).  I hope they get a chance in the pros but their not going down as Husker legends.  I tend to think the next guys up have a chance to fill their shoes quite well.  

 
knapplc said:
The real losses for Nebraska are going to be the Davis twins & Darrion Daniels - basically the entire D Line.

Into those shoes you're going to have Ben Stille, Damien Daniels and Deontre Thomas, right? We'll see how it goes with another year in S&C.
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Yeah, I'm a bit worried about our D-line too.  But sometimes you just can't tell when someone else will step up--or other positions will compensate. 

Remember when Vincent Valentine and Maliek Collins both bailed out on their senior year to enter the 2016 NFL draft?  I thought that would kill us.  But we ended up going 9-4 in 2016 without Valentine / Collins after a mediocre 6-7 record in 2015 with both of them.  So you never can tell.  :shrug:

 
NUance said:
Yeah, I'm a bit worried about our D-line too.  But sometimes you just can't tell when someone else will step up--or other positions will compensate. 

Remember when Vincent Valentine and Maliek Collins both bailed out on their senior year to enter the 2016 NFL draft?  I thought that would kill us.  But we ended up going 9-4 in 2016 without Valentine / Collins after a mediocre 6-7 record in 2015 with both of them.  So you never can tell.  :shrug:
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The d line has got to be stout to allow the LBs, and the defense as a whole, to function.  Time for Ty Robinson, Mosai Newsome etc to step up and be Big Ten quality guys.

 
Relative to the many other problems this team had as it finished the 2019 season, the defensive line is almost last on the list for me. I'm not worried about it at all, really.

The narrative is that we had no pass rushing linebackers last year. So as far as returning production in that department goes, Alex Davis didn't really do anything at all the entire season and then he graduated. Somebody has to step up there or we'll have more situations where mediocre quarterbacks stand in the pocket all game and drive down the field on us (with the Purdue game as a great example).

 
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